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Concert to honor short life of Sandy Hook’s Jesse Lewis, benefit nonprofit

Concert to honor short life of Sandy Hook’s Jesse...

1of4US President Donald Trump and others listen as Scarlett Lewis, holding a photo of her son, Sandy Hook mass shooting victim Jesse Lewis, speaks during a roundtable discussion about school safety in the Roosevelt Room of the the White House December 18, 2018 in Washington, D.C.Photo: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI / AFP /Getty Images

4of4Neil Heslin holding a photograph of himself with his son, Jesse Lewis, prepares to give testimony at a legislative hearing about gun control at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford in 2013.Photo: Arnold Gold / New Haven Register

NEWTOWN — Scarlett Lewis has been no stranger to the national headlines over the last year.

The mother of a slain Sandy Hook first-grader who started a kindness mission in her son’s honor, Lewis made national news last July when New Hampshire’s governor adopted her social and emotional learning curriculum statewide.

She made news again in December when she met with President Donald Trump, and in March when her defamation lawsuit against extremist Alex Jones prompted him to blame his claim that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax on “almost...like a form of psychosis.”

But on Sunday — the day her son Jesse would have turned 13 — Lewis and supporters hope to make local news with a concert in Danbury to benefit the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement.

“It is really a celebration of what everyone has done to come together and help us have our program taught in all 50 states and in 80 countries — not just in schools but in homes and workplaces,” said Lewis. “The local community has been a huge supporter of the movement.”

The 3 p.m. event, planned at Ives Concert Park, features the Rhode Island rock n’ roll group John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band, and a schedule of family-friendly activities — from temporary tattoos and puppet making to a “slime station.”

“It is an event that is really structured for kids to come out and have a good time but also to honor and remember Jesse and serve as a fundraiser too,” said Neil Heslin, Jesse Lewis’ father. “The whole social and emotional learning program is offered for free and is all about engaging community support and involvement.”

Sunday’s concert, which represents the largest fundraiser the Choose Love Movement has organized, comes at a time of growth for the nonprofit, which raises about 60 percent of its annual $800,000 budget from individual donors.

Founded on a decades-old concept known as social and emotional learning, the movement’s curriculum teaches character-building values of courage, gratitude, forgiveness and something Lewis calls compassion in action.

“The opposite of anxiety is action,” says Lewis. “Everyone wants to do something, but we don’t always know what to do. The Jesse Lewis movement is a way for everyone to come and be connected as human beings by the need to love and be loved.”

The idea is getting traction nationally as leaders across the country struggle with a school shooting crisis that seems to have progressed since a young gunman killed 20 first graders and six educators at Sandy Hook School in 2012.

“Usually the focus is external safety measures, but none of them address why a child would harm themselves or others,” Lewis said. “Social and emotional learning proactively reduces and prevents not only violence but suicide, depression, substance abuse and mental illness.”

The White House agrees.. A 180-page school safety report released a week before Christmas singled out Lewis’ social and emotional learning program as a best practice to reduce bullying and violence.

More recently, Lewis has been in the headlines as one of the Sandy Hook parents suing Jones and his Infowars internet business in separate defamation lawsuits.

The lawsuits are advancing on parallel tracks in Texas and Connecticut.

Just last week, Jones was sanctioned by the judge overseeing the Connecticut lawsuit for claiming lawyers for the parents of the Sandy Hook victims tried to frame him with child pornography.

Heslin, who is suing Jones for defamation in Texas, said Sunday’s event was important to restore the decorum of loss.

“Any mission or endeavor a family takes is about honoring and remembering the loved one you lost,” Heslin said. “Sunday is about keeping Jesse’s memory and honor alive, and to celebrate his short life.”